Talk:Calendar
# of Months I contacted someone at Cyrdee.com for some additional details regarding the calendar. Here are a few snippets given to me detailing some conversations about the calender. R.E.F. is Raymond E. Feist, and S.A. is Steve Allen, one of the writers of the original Midkemia RPG texts.: >Ask Steve about the calendar. I refuse to use it. It's pretty >weird. > >In the "real" (i.e. game) Midkemia, the year is something like 200 days, >and the day is only 20 hours. The minute is, I believe, a standard >minute. > >For the books, I hate that old bad 1950's SF movie convention, "We >discovered your planet six hundred yagoons--a unit of measurement almost >exactly the same as your year--ago. . ." > >It falls into "don't give the reader an excuse to stop reading" section >of why I don't do it. > >Best, R.E.F. Years are 200 days of 20 hours each. There are a whole variety of reasons for that which I don't have the time for, but the 20 hour day was to provide a similar gravitational pull for a smaller planet (Midkemia is smaller than earth). The 200 day year was principly a game convention to allow a reasonable amount of time to lapse between gaming sessions (in terms of seasons), other than that it's origins are pretty arbitrary. The calendar changes with the location - we had established that the Kingdom named the years based on 'Kings' - but like Ray, I was never very happy with it either so I'm not going to go into it here since we might change it before putting the game out again... Steve A. Midkemia Press >A few days ago I got the yet available Midkemia RPG stuff (Thank you, >Steve!). >In the 2nd edition of "Cities" I found a very strange Midkemian calendar. For >those who don't own this booklet, here are the months (with the numbers of >days >in brackets): > > Banapis (1) >Kimia (18) >Rodec (15) >Staphron (10) >Natinica (12) >Wochem (45) > Mid-Winter (1) >Nuna (11) >Agaeis (37) >Yemiev (11) >Dzanin (39) > >Banapis (Midsummer's Day) is a day wich belongs to neither the old nor the >new >year. Mid-Winter day belongs to no month. >Why are there nine month and why are the numbers of days per month so >different? >Altogether there are (including Banapis) only 200 days in a year! Assuming >that >a day on Midkemia is as long as a day on earth, the year of Midkemia is about >45% shorter than on earth. This means (for example) that a boy, who is 14 >Midkemian years on the day of his Choosing, is only seven and a half years on >earth. Surely that's too young, and neither Pug nor Thomas seems to be only >seven years old at the begining of Magician. >In addition, Arutha said during the Presentation of his sons in ADaS that >"Today >is the three hundred tenth day of the second year of the reign of our Lord >King, >..." >So I guess that this calendar is some garbage from the development of >Midkemia, >replaced by a new one. Am I right? >Does anybody know something about the "real" Midkemian calendar? > >Holger That is the "real" Midkemian calendar. I ignored it for the sake of not causing "reality breaks," with the reader, explaining why at 25 years old Pug's a wee boy getting ready for the Choosing and why at 34 Arutha's considered too young to command at Cyrdee. Leaving them 14 and 19 respectively makes it easier for the reader. Best, R.E.F. Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by stupidity. > "Banapis" => 1, > "Kimia" => 18, > "Rodec" => 15, > "Staphron" => 10, > "Natinica" => 12, > "Wochem" => 45, > "Mid-Winter" => 1, > "Nuna" => 11, > "Agaeis" => 37, > "Yamiev" => 11, > "Dzanin" => 39 > ); > > And that's the order they are in, too, so the second day of > the year is 1 Kimia. > > Actually, it's the first, as Banapis doesn't belong to any year. It's weird, I know, but then so are Steve and Jon given half a chance. Best, R.E.F. It'll have to wait until I get home and have the stuff in front of me for details but basically the year is 200 days with a 1 day 'month' each 100 days (Banapis and Midwinter). The months in the first half of the year tend toward small numbers of days (10-15) and the months in the latter half to long numbers (Wochem has 45 days). Game-wise we use a 6-day week for calendar purposes (e.g. how many weeks have passed for character catchup, etc.) The oddness in terms of days per month is lost in the mists of time. At one point we tried to rationalize it with the phases of the three moons, but finally gave it up and just settled on it having religious significance. SA As you can see, R.E.F. had reasons for the difference that make sense...trying to avoid a disconnect with readers. As can be seen in the Magician, this causes some odd details, such as 14 months after the day of Pug's Choosing on Midsummer's Day, we are back in the summer several weeks before autumn. In a 11 month calender of which two months are a single day, 14 months would be in the fall or winter. For the sake of clarity, it's best to disregard the listed calender when reading so as not to confuse yourself. But, as seen above, even R.E.F. regards it as the real calender of Midkemia.TripCyclone 00:24, October 30, 2010 (UTC)